This thread is primarily aimed at those of you who picked up Vagrant
Story and tried to play it only to get completely confused by the
weapons system and ended up doing 0 damage to a boss a couple hours in.
The game unfortunately doesn't document its own mechanics very well, so
the majority of people that played the game ended up hating it and this
is a crying shame.

So what we're going to do is talk about the game mechanics and try to
provide as much detail and documentation as possible for anyone that
has always wanted to give it a second chance. The game was produced and
directed by a guy named Yasumi Matsuno,
and this is the same Matsuno that primarily led the development of
Final Fantasy XII. If you enjoyed FFXII, you'll most likely also enjoy
VS quite a lot. So read through the advice here, let it sink in, read
it again, and play Vagrant Story dag nabbit.

Special note! I am not an "expert" on this game, I just understand
it well enough to love it. I want more people to enjoy the game, hence
the thread, but there are many people here that have much more
experience and can provide better insight, so keep reading!

First things first...

иии The Basics

Vagrant Story is all about your weapons, it's a weapon-based game and
your weapons are the most important part of the game so remember that
everything revolves around your weapons weapons weapons weapons. Have
your brain block out the traditional character- or party-based ideas
that RPGs have been using for years because you will screw yourself
otherwise. Your character's strength is a drop in the bucket compared
to the importance of using the right weapon at the right time on the
right enemy class. Read that over and over again until it sinks in.

There are six different types of enemies in the game: Human, Beast,
Phantom, Undead, Evil and Dragon. Your goal is to be able to have one weapon for each enemy type,
and this weapon will be used exclusively on that enemy type. Yes, this
requires switching weapons two or three times per room and no there
isn't a quick weapon switch in the game, even though there are buttons
like R2 which are completely unused. This is one of the only downfalls
of the game but just grin and bear it since it's incredibly rewarding.

иии The Weapons

It's almost as if your weapons are alive in this game. They react to
the enemy they attack and gain affinities based on that. The very first
thing you must do when you start playing the game is go into the
options menu and enable the Weapon Status indicator. This is what will
help you understand and visualize the entire weapons system and they
should have enabled it by default. With this indicator enabled, go and
attack an enemy and in the lower-left corner of the screen you'll
suddenly see how your weapon's affinities changed based on that attack,
it usually looks something like this:

Weapon Beast +1
Weapon Dragon -1
Weapon Evil -1

What this means is that your weapon gained an affinity towards Beasts
(assuming you attacked a Beast), and it lowered its affinities towards
Dragons and Evil. The weapon will now do even more damage against
Beasts and even less damage against Dragons and Evil enemies. If you
kept this same weapon equipped and went around attacking Undead, you'd
end up lowering the weapon's Beast affinity in favor of Undead
affinity. This is where most people get confused since it's pretty
standard in an RPG to use the same weapon for a long period of time,
but in Vagrant Story this habit will only produce a weapon that is
really ineffective against all enemy types. If you have your Beast
weapon equipped and you come across a Phantom, get in there and switch
weapons or you'll lower the weapon's Beast affinity and you'll really
regret it the next time you come across a Minotaur.

The weapons themselves consist of two separate and interchangeable pieces: The blade and the grip.

Blades come in many different types: one-handed sword,
two-handed sword, one-handed axe, one-handed mace, polearm, dagger,
etc. In addition to this, blades also have one of three
characteristics: Edged, Blunt or Piercing. These characteristics are
pretty self-explanitory: A Blunt blade would smash like a baseball bat,
a Piercing blade would be like a lance and an Edged blade would have an
edge. This plays into the enemy types and we'll discuss this shortly.

Grips also have categories: a certain grip can only be attached
to certain blade types. In addition, grips are also designed for
certain blade characteristics, for example a particular grip might fit
Axes/Maces/Staffs but it has an Edged rating of 10 whereas its Blunt
and Piercing ratings are 2 and 3. Obviously, then, this grip would be
best suited with an axe blade. Grips also have up to three slots for
gems, which we'll discuss later.

So now you ask, "But how do I know which weapon type to use on a
particular class of enemy?" Mostly logic I guess, but it's not exactly
cut-and-dry. Humans bleed to death so get an Edged weapon in there,
same with Beasts. Dragons have scales so you have to pierce them.
Undead are just bones so use a Blunt mace to smash the bones. Evil and
Phantom vary depending on the actual enemy but Edged is the most versatile blade type so that's always a safe bet.

Also keep shields in mind, they can only be equipped when you're using
a one-handed weapon. Shields are a great way to increase your defense
and they also allow you to equip gems, which is crucial when fighting
Phantoms (again, we'll talk about this later but keep it in mind when
dealing with your weapons).

Now, if you're looking for some guidelines as far as which weapon to
use on a certain class, here's something to get you started (Note: this
is very disputable and everyone plays differently, there really isn't a
"best" weapon for most classes):

Human - Two-handed axe
Beast - One-handed sword (crossbow is also a good option if you can get it strong)
Phantom - One-handed axe (you want to be able to equip a shield when fighting Phantoms)
Undead - One-handed mace (two-handed mace might be better though)
Evil - Two-handed sword
Dragon - Polearm

So that's the main chunk of the game, the weapons system. If something
doesn't make sense to you, read it again and post questions if it's
still not clear, we're all more than happy to help. With that out of
the way, let's talk about the other important things in the game:

иии The Workshops

Workshops are where you create new weapons by combining your existing blades and grips. When at a workshop, go to GameFAQs
and pull up the Combinations Guide. Look at the blade of one of your
weapons, find it in the guide, and see what you can make with the other
spare blades you've acquired. Basically just try to make a roadmap for
your weapons so that you can continue to improve them without screwing
something up. I managed to get a Hoplite shield on my first playthrough
simply by carefully tracking which combinations yielded which results
and planned accordingly. It's a very cool feeling once you are able to
stomp any enemy in the game after all that hard work.

When you combine your blades, you'll get to see a little preview of
what will come of the combination, be sure to take a look at all this
beforehand and ensure you're getting a better blade out of the deal.
Also what's cool is that your best enemy affinities will transfer over
to the new blade so you don't have to worry about training your blades
over and over again.

As far as materials go, you'll want to shoot for Hagane on your first
playthrough since it's really well-rounded and can be combined in
almost all of the workshops in the game (Hagane can be obtained by
combining a Bronze item with an Iron item). Honestly I wouldn't worry
too much about materials, just make the best equipment you can. Also,
always repair your weapons when you're in a workshop, always. Your
weapons are at their best when they've been freshly repaired.

иии The Combat

Combat is pretty straightforward. When you initiate the combat dome
(the size of which varies depending on the range of your weapon), you
can choose to attack an enemy in specific locations for varying degrees
of damage and success rates. You'll notice some information about the
enemy at the bottom of the screen, the most important parts are the
right-most stats: Damage/Success on the top line, and then to the right
of the bottom line, Enemy Type (which tells you which of your weapons
you should be using). If you're going to attack an enemy's head, you
might see something like 23/98%. This means that you have a 98% chance
of hitting the target and that you'll do somewhere around 23 points of
damage. If you then point to the enemy's body, they might have armor or
they might be in an awkward position which could make those numbers
change to something like 2/41%. So, go for the head!

Magic is a lifesaver in combat so don't forget to cast some if you're
finding yourself in a jam. The Fusions, the Guards, Magic Ward,
Herakles and Prostasia will all become your best friends throughout the
game since they have such a tremendous impact on the damage you deal.
For example if you're fighting a Fire Phantom, cast Frost Fusion on
your weapon, Pyro Guard on yourself and Prostasia or Herakles on
yourself and you'll be doing 500% more damage and receiving 50% of the
damage you were without all that. Add gems into this mix and you will
be pretty much unstoppable.

Be careful, though, you can only have three total spells cast on
yourself at once: One on your weapon and two on yourself. Casting a new
magic spell will override previous spells and you could waste some MP
so watch out.

иии Chaining and Risk

One of the key parts of the game is chaining. Once again go into the
options and enable the Timing Display indicator. With this indicator
enabled, you'll see an exclamation mark appear over Ashley's head when the next button should be pressed.
I need to make this as clear as possible: When you see the exclamation
mark, your thumb should be pressing the button. The exclamation mark is
not an indicator of when to begin moving your thumb. Your button
presses should be synchronized so that you're seeing the exclamation
mark as you're hitting the button. It takes a bit of practice and getting comfortable with the various moves, but you'll be able to chain to infinity in no time.

The drawback to chaining is that it increases your Risk, and this is
where you get your first glimpse of the game's balancing act. The
effect of Risk is twofold: It decreases the likelihood of a successful
attack but it increases the likelihood of a critical hit. Risk is not calculated into the x/x% number
so you'll need to do some mental adjustments to take it into account.
Risk is pretty cool because it prevents you from just chaining away at
a boss or enemy without any repercussions. You certainly could
chain to 50 hits on a Wyvern but the second you mess up you'll have
full Risk and the chances of you connecting another hit before the
Wyvern attacks is slim to none. The moral of the story is to never
chain longer than you need to, usually about 4-6 chains is plenty.
Break the chain and start over again to keep your Risk as low as
possible while dealing as much damage as you can.

The interesting thing about chains is that the damage you deal
increases slightly with each hit so you can theoretically kill any
enemy, even if you start at 0. This is very dangerous and
time-consuming, however, and should only be considered as an absolute
last-ditch effort.

иии The "points"

If you take a look at your weapons, you'll notice they have other point
values associated with them: Damage Points and Phantom Points. Damage
Points are basically an effectiveness meter, more DP means the weapon
is more effective which means it simply deals more damage. As you use
your weapons, their Damage Points will slowly decrease, which decreases
the amount of damage they deal.

Phantom Points, on the other hand, seem to have everyone confused and
there is a lot of conflicting information regarding them. Some say PP
is only for the Phantom Pain move, some say they increase the
likelihood of critical hits, some say they are a stat boost for weapons
when full... Anyone know for sure? In any case, Phantom Points are a
good thing and they accumulate as you use your weapons.

You can fully restore your weapons' Damage Points by simply repairing
them in a workshop, however, repairing uses up all your Phantom Points
(there's that balancing act again). In the end, DP and PP aren't really
crucial need-to-know mechanics so just keep your weapons repaired and
you'll be fine.

иии The Gems

Gems are pretty straightforward, each gem has certain benefits and
modifies your stats/affinities how you see fit. Just equip the
appropriate gems depending on what enemy a particular weapon/shield is
being used against and you'll notice a big difference.

One thing I need to make a hullaballoo about, however, is this: Gems are crucial against Phantoms.
Most Phantoms in the game have a strong elemental affinity and the only
way you'll be able to deal any sort of significant damage to them is by
using magic and gems, period. The first time I fought the Fire
Elemental Phantom I ended up doing the chain-from-zero tactic simply
because I was unprepared and didn't know these mechanics as well as I
do now (I actually think I had an Air gem equipped which I didn't even
realize until later). So be warned, you can really get into a pickle if
you're unaware of this stuff.

иии Miscellaneous

-Each room has a different name, go through and look at them some time and you'll appreciate the atmosphere and sense of history

-There is a New Game+ feature which lets you restart the game while
retaining all your old weapons and stats from the previous playthrough.
You can really feel invincible if you play through the game and
absolutely cream everything in your path, it also helps you to watch
the story unfold quicker.

-This page
(archives) in the old Final Fantasy XII thread is chock full of great
advice and discussion on the game which inspired this thread. Good
stuff therein.

-Personal thanks to Mrs Badcrumble who was my VS mentor and held my hand through the game, XOXO

-Use the grimoires right away, they teach you magic spells! They aren't rare items like Ethers!

-A Dragon's deadliest attack is its breath and it'll really work you
over. The good news is that it can't use its breath on you if you're
under its head, so get under there as fast as you can and start
attacking its legs or neck.

-The last boss is a completely different enemy type and requires a
unique strategy. I'll let someone else explain further because I only
beat it with sheer dumb luck.

-Don't spend too long on the later box puzzles, they get ridiculously hard near the end.

-Oh, and USE STATUS SPELLS. You know how status spells suck in FF and
direct damage is everything? Yeah, not here. Direct damage is horrible,
but a well timed tarnish/degenerate combination will turn a fearsome
opponent into Stephen Hawking. (Thanks Nomenklatura)

-The best advice is can offer for Vagrant Story is to not be afraid to
take things slow and switch weapons FREQUENTLY through the menu screen.
This game takes time upon time upon time and you can't be afraid of it.
(Thanks Sloth Socks)

-I think there's one small bit of advice I can give, since the general bases have been covered - when all else fails, REFLECT. (Thanks anderton)

иии Goons Helping Goons (tips from the last thread)

A killer workshop reference assembled by Extra_Thumbs:

Extra_Thumbs posted:

An explanation on weapon pairing:

Nomenklatura posted:

The
best way to look at Vagrant Story is to think of it as something like
an strat-RPG. Since Ashley doesn't level, but his weapons do, you have
to treat the weapons like you would soldiers in an strat-RPG: figure
out what role you want them to play, how specialized you want them to
be, and be sure to use them all so that they all get levelled up. You
CANNOT rely on a single weapon in Vagrant Story any more than you can
rely on a single soldier in FFT, and trying to do so only leads to the
"why the hell is my weapon only doing one point of damage" situation.
There's a reason why the forge figures so prominently in that opening
FMV- Vagrant Story is about weapon (and to a lesser extent armor)
design, and you need to keep that constantly in mind.

Anyway, here's a breakdown:

Three main types of weapons: edged, piercing, blunt. Six types of
affinities: Beast, Phantom, Human, Evil, Undead, Dragon. A bunch of
elemental affinities, which I won't get into.

Each type of weapon tends to be better against a particular type of
baddy, except for humans that wear different kinds of armor. Beasts and
Dragons hate piercing weapons, for example. Different types of weapons
(crossbow, sword, rapier, whatever) tend to be better with different
types of critters, but it breaks down into those three groups. So the
rule is to find the right kind of weapon, and start giving it the right
pair of affinities.

Pair? Yep. Listen close:

here are the types of critters in order:

Human.
Beast.
Undead.
Phantom.
Dragon.
Evil.

When you club something to death, your weapon gets "experience". The
thing is, it ALSO can LOSE experience to whatever is BELOW that critter
on the list.

Let's say you kill a soldier. Your sword gets a +1 to human.
Great..except that it also gets a -1 to beast. You kill a beast, beast
gets a +1, but it gets -1 to Undead. And so on, and so forth. It CAN
also go +1 human, -1 undead, but it's kind of unlikely, and -1 phantom
doesn't happen.

(The list wraps around... kill some evil, lose some human.)

So, the practical upshot is that you pair things that aren't likely to
pull away from each other. That's why
Human-Phantom/Beast-Dragon/Undead-Evil works- they're unlikely to -1
from each other. You CAN go Human-Undead-Dragon and Beast-Phantom-Evil,
and it'll still work, but it's not as useful.

(As for elemental affinities, screw 'em- you get gems with those. Just
add and subtract the gems. You should get proper affinities by fighting
the right pairs anyway.)

Do a quick scan of the baddies in the room when you enter it, grab the
right weapon, and go to town. When you find a new weapon, check the
synth lists (screw experimentation), and synth it onto the one you've
got.

And remember- when you're looking at ashley's affinities in the status
screen, you can switch to the other guys using L1 and R1. You can learn
absolutely EVERYTHING about the guys you're fighting. No excuses.

Take heart in the fact that it's still easier than the Legend of Mana
weapon system, though. THAT thing was insane. Makes Dark Cloud 2 look
like a Final Fantasy.

And a friendly counterpoint:

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

pairing
CAN work, but due to blade types and whatnot you're better off not
pairing. like, you should have a Blunt Undead weapon and an Edged Evil
weapon. you COULD pair those two but it would suck. 6 weapons is way
better than 3 really

Another take on pairing:

Seth Huber posted:

Another
problem with pairing is that enemies of the same type aren't always
weak to the same weapons. Evil especially has this problem, they're all
over the place in everything from damage resistance to elemental
affinity. Undeads are about half weak to blunt and half weak to
piercing. Also having a Human/Phantom sword doesn't make a lot of sense
because Phantoms are mostly weak to blunt (although you have to pretty
much always use elements against phantoms). The big determiner in how much damage you do isn't your enemy affinity but your weapon's edged/piercing/blunt status.
Enemy affinity is somewhat important in the early game, but mostly
something you mainly worry about once you get access to the dummies.
The main use of only having 3 weapons is that you don't have to switch
so damn much (why the hell didn't they include a weapon switch on the
quick menu instead of the useless usable items?!?!)

A theory on PP/DP:

Nomenklatura posted:

Phantom
points increase damage. Every time you use a weapon to kill something,
it gets phantom points, but it also LOSES durability. If you've got
full phantom, it does double damage... but if you repair it, all the
phantom points are gone.

So the trick is to have weapons regain durability by using the right
combo tricks, rather than straight repairs. Figure out how to chain
that durability-building ability and spam it.

Final boss strategy:

Valvados posted:

I'll
chime in here because I've honestly never really had that much of a
problem with the final boss. He hits hard as hell, but if you know what
you're doing you can negate almost every single one of his attacks.

This strategy takes a lot of time to execute, but once I started using
it, I have never once lost against the final boss. It also avoids
cheesing him to death with Phantom Pain (besides, on my first time
through the game, I hadn't gotten that particular ability yet).

I'll try and make this as spoiler free as possible, too.

Here's what you need for this strategy:
1) A good, strong 2-Handed Great Sword with a high Evil-class and Light-elemental affinity that will hold 3 gems
2) A good, strong shield that will hold 2 gems
3) Demonscale (Defense Chain)
4) Magic Ward
5) Demonscale
6) Herakles
7) At least two Demonia gems
8) One physical damage enhancing gem, like a Titan Malachite
9) Demonscale, motherfucker! If you don't have it, go get it. NOW!

Aside from the shield and Great Sword, just wear the best armor that you have gotten so far. The armor that got you through the Grand Cathedral
really should be more than enough. The whole idea behind the final
battle is to not get hit unless it is absolutely unavoidable, so your
armor doesn't really matter as much as you might think.

You should not have any trouble at all with the first form of the boss.
If you can't fap, you are nowhere near ready to take on the second,
final form. Just stick the Demonia and the Titan Malachite on the Great
Sword, fuck it over with a few chains, and watch the pretty cutscene.

Here we go.

At the very beginning of the fight, do three things. First, get to the
center of the circle; he can't hit you there. Second, HEAL YOURSELF!
Any damage you took in the first fight isn't automatically erased, IT
CARRIES OVER! So pop a few Nostrums, get your HP and MP full, and your
Risk down to 0. The third step really depends on how many Demonia gems
you have. If you only have 2, put them on the shield. If you have more
than 2, put 2 on the shield, and put the others and the Titan Malachite
on the Great Sword. Equip the shield.

Now we're ready to start.

This boss has a very predicatable pattern to begin with. He'll fly
around like a spaz and then pick a random spot on the outside of the
circle to stop. DON'T CHASE HIM. Wait for him to stop. While he's
flitting around, cast Herakles on yourself, and then Magic Ward. For
the love of God, don't cast Magic Ward first, because then when you
cast Herakles it'll negate the ward and you'll have wasted a bunch of
MP. Anyway, Herakles, then Magic Ward. By now, he should have settled
down. Run over to him. On your way over, he will cast a spell. Magic
Ward will absorb it. You are now still at full HP instead of 3/4 dead.

When you get to the edge of the circle where he is, open up the menu.
Unequip the shield and equip your Great Sword. Transfer the Demonia
from the shield over to the sword so that it has two Demonia and the
Titan Malachite on it. Get out of the menu.

Open up your battle sphere, and target his head. Chain together four,
five attacks at most. NO MORE. You CANNOT let your Risk get high at all
in this battle. If you can't reach the head, go for the arms. Don't
bother with any other body part. Don't bother with trying to be fancy
with shit like Break Arts, because they deplete your HP and you want it
to be at maximum at all times.

As soon as you finish attacking, open the menu again. Transfer the
Demonia back to the shield and equip the shield. Run back to the center
of the circle. If he managed to hit you, heal with an item. Use an item
to lower your Risk to 0. Recast Magic Ward. Wait for him to settle on
another part of the circle, and repeat the process. Run up to him, let
Magic Ward absorb the spell on the way, transfer the Demonia to the
sword, attack four or five times, transfer the gems back to the shield,
run back to the center, heal, recast Magic Ward, etc. Recast Herakles
as it fades (it should last through 2 or 3 cycles of this attack
pattern). Use items to retore your MP as needed.

So why the fuck are we even bothering with the shield?

Two words: Bloody Sin.

After you knock around half his HP off (250~300ish), he will hit you
with his uber-attack. If you are not ready for it, Bloody Sin can and
will cause upwards of 500HP of evil-class damage. No, it doesn't matter
to the game that that's probably about 150HP more than Ashley's max at
this point.

But it doesn't matter, because we're going to be ready for it.

After you deplete half his life, instead of starting to flit around the
outside of the circle, he'll start flying overhead. This is why you
take the precaution of reequipping the shield and filling it with
Demonia immediately after you finish attacking. You want as high of an
Evil defense rating as you can muster.

You do have Demonscale equipped, right? Cool. Just checking.

You'll see a bunch of cool graphics. Green-white energy starts flying
around Ashley like he's in some kind of weird bukakke ritual and is
about to get a very unwelcome facial. Speaking of facials, watch for
the camera. It zooms in right on a close-up Ashley's face. An exclamation mark chain indicator will come up at this point! Use Demonscale!

With any luck, with the shield equipped, and if you got off Demonscale,
you should have taken less than 100HP damage from what can easily be an
insta-kill attack.

Toss back a Nostrum, keep up the original attack pattern, and the final
boss should fall without much trouble at all. Isn't preparedness a good
thing?

This is how I finally ended up beating the last boss, I was getting raped (emphasis mine):

Mrs. Badcrumble posted:

Actually, with the Bloody Sin attack, you can cancel it entirely. :cool:

Before the final boss executes Bloody Sin, it'll fly up into the sky.
After that, it'll zoom directly overhead the battle arena, and when it
reaches the end of it it'll immediately cast Bloody Sin. If you manage to attack the boss while it's flying over the arena, you'll cancel Bloody Sin entirely. It's pretty easy to do that, too, what with the shortcut menu essentially allowing you to advance the battle frame by frame until he's within attack range,
after which you can drop a Break Art on him (since it's got such nice
range and you can't do a regular attack out of the quick menu).

Interrupting Bloody Sin is a HUGE lifesaver and a timesaver to boot.

A bunch of random, helpful information:

Gatts posted:

My
suggestions would include Break Arts. Please, they can do a lot of
damage when appropriate and are worth the risk. If you are quick with
the fingers you should be able to get 3-4 break arts in, a heal, before
the enemy takes action. You can tell what the enemy is doing when the
bubble over the head is "..." vs "!" which is when he's going to act.

Make use of the chest. Save as much as you can for items, making use of
the Save Chest so you can experiment with item forging/combining unless
you wish to use a FAQ. Personally, I'd say just save yourself the time
and use a Combining FAQ. Save as much Vera Roots/Bulbs you get and if
possible harvest as many as you can for later use. Keep in mind,
despite the appearance that Ashley is wearing assless chaps, he does
have armor on. And the armor is affected like a weapon. The more a
certain type of enemy beats on you or does elemental damage, its stats
will change accordingly. If you use your fists (as I did on second and
third play throughs), then your gauntlets also change affinities like a
weapon.

Wines. If you really want the best effect, consider this, you can save
and then drink a wine which will give you a +1-4 of a Stat. Granted
Stats aren't exactly the most important contributor to what you do,
they can help. Like DEX with height and distance jumps. If you get a +1
and have just saved, then restart until you get a +4 if you have the
patience.

Make use of the quick menu button. It'll give you time to pause and
react to something that might be fast moving while having the option to
open menus like for magic or such. Especially during the Bloody Sin
attack of the last boss. Hold it down during the animation then you'll
have it whipped out when it'll give you the chance to guard it, quickly
hit start, then you can get into the menu and equip a shield to reduce
the damage.

The Map is the best I've experienced in a game as is the Beastiary and
Status screen. Use them. When you encounter an enemy, go to the status
screen, see Ashley, and press L1 or L2 so you can see what they have
on. Like a rare item or new acessory or something. This way you get an
idea of what might be available if you kill the guy and possibly get
the item.

Acessories and gems really help. Also, it's neat to see each weapon in
Ashley's status screen since the type it is made of changes the
appearance and every type of weapon is unique. Damascas has a different
color and appearance to silver. During cutscenes what you have out will
be on display, enter a boss battle with an Axe, and it'll show. Have it
sheathed and you'll enter walking unarmed.

There are a lot of details. Well, that was a hodgepodge of things. I hope more play the game and ask questions.

EDIT: I like to think the Iron Maiden B3-Exit is like a venture through Hell.
EDIT 2: Also, depending on the stats on your weapon, it'll be given a
special title. Like if you have +50 in Humans and +50 in Elemental
Affinity or +100 and +100.
EDIT 3: You can get enemies to fight each other and help you. If you
can position them so one enemy hits them instead, they can start
attacking your enemy and will aid you. I think even the icon changes to
a heart over their head but am not sure. It's been years since I've
played this.

There is a ton of extras and details. Especially on second play through.

This is something I really want and I'm hoping the PS3's game save swapping allows me to experience:

Aeon posted:

I
remember making a weapon with 100 in all enemy and elemental
affinities. To do so, you need 3 of the same weapon so that you can
combine them later on (I used the Rhomphaia, the special one-handed
sword in the deepest part of the Iron Maiden). What you do is work on 2
types of enemies and elements per blade, and at the end you can combine
them all to make a godly weapon. Then throw in three of the best gems
and you are unstoppable.

There's a faq for this on gamefaqs, and even though it's tedious it
makes any future playthroughs MUCH more enjoyable because you don't
have to worry about the weapon system anymore and can instead focus on
the amazing story, characters, and scenery.

One notch below ultimate weapon:

sonic spectre posted:

If
you want a "quick" superweapon, go for the Hagane Destroyer (2-hand
blunt). A Damascus Holy Win only beats it by one point of STR
(Destroyers have higher base STR if all else is equal), and is much
more difficult to attain, much less train to max affinity (you'd need
at least 3 of them to drop). You can get Mjollnirs and Grievers to make
the Destroyer off of Crimson Guard guys near the end of your first
playthough. Holy Wins also have greater range and less risk use, but
both weapons are gonna demolish anything you meet in a couple hits at
most, so it doesn't really matter.

Selane posted:

You
didn't mention the defensive properties of Risk, only the offensive
ones. It has the two offensive effects you mentioned(increasing miss
rate and increasing crit chance). Defensively, higher Risk increases
the damage you take and increases the amount of health you restore with
healing spells.

Also, the optimal chain length is 8. That's the secret answer, remember
"8". Risk goes up at a weird, irregular rate during chains. It's
something like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 22, 35, 50, etc. So by
stopping every chain at 8(preferably sooner rather than later if its
not going to be exact) you get the most damage you can out of the least
possible Risk.

As was mentioned, the easiest weapon system is Dragon/Beast,
Human/Phantom, and Undead/Evil. If you can't remember which is which
don't forget that you can name your weapons. Feel free to be lazy and
name them dragbeast and shit.

Silver weapons you find(find being the key word here, not build) tend
to already have highass Evil and Undead stats, so they make good
starting points for those weapons.

As for Phantom Points, they increase the effectiveness of your
equipment. It's true that you lose them when you repair, but you can
regain full PP in MUCH less time than it takes to wear out a weapon
again. Therefore you should still repair every chance you get.

Moving along, one combo you should remember is Crimson Pain/Raging
Ache. Crimson Pain deals extra damage at the expense of doing damage to
you. Raging Ache deals damage equal to 10% of the health you're
missing. So if you're missing 200hp it does 20 damage per hit. That's
not a lot, but it IS reliable damage that is guaranteed to work on
everything, regardless of your stats, or your weapon's class, affinity,
or type. If all else fails you can always kill something using this
combo, or Raging Ache alone.

Karma Guard posted:

Item Drops: When you're low on health, the enemies start dropping them
more. Same thing with Vera and Risk. At least, I've noticed this.

Items: When the game gives you a certain elemental gem, there's going
to be a fight against the opposite one. Listen to the game.

Boxes: Always keep a Crossbow on hand, and some Snowfly Draughts.
Whichever ones make you go faster. The first lets you destroy boxes at
a distance, and the second lets you make farther jumps (almost a block
farther; enough to mantle them).

Damage: The enemies take damage like you do. Attack the heads of
casters, and the weapon-bearing arms of attackers. This is especially
true with Liches, those damn teleporting bastards. :argh:

Magic: The only reason you should hold onto Grimores is because learning a spell gives you a free shot of them.

Pretty much exactly the opposite of what I said in the first post but the game is quite flexible so do whichever suits you best!

happy lolidayz posted:

I guess I said this in the first post (good post btw) but I am
expanding on it here because it is important. Here is a great tip for
newbies if you find yourself getting frustrated or even thinking too
much about the future of your weapons:

You really only need 3 weapons total. One edged, one piercing, and one blunt.
Weapon type is by far the most important thing to consider: Enemy class
(like beasts and dragons and shit) matters much much less than just
about any other factor, and elemental affinity (which can be crucial
important) can be put on with gems or spells.

So don't go into the game thinking "Okay this is gonna be
my Human sword and my Dragon spear and my Beast crossbow" or whatever,
because you're just setting yourself up for frustration, since not all
enemy classes are all weak to the same weapon type. Most Humans in
particular usually switch up their weaknesses on each enemy and there's
no way to tell what they're weak to without checking or memorizing them
all like "okay the crimson blade holding a spear in this specific map
is weak to blunt." This requires much less grinding for weapons, less
tedious weapon switching, and is surprisingly a lot more effective than
having one weapon per enemy type. And usually you'll find you build up
enemy points anyway because you're generally gonna be whacking
skeletons with your mace and fighting wolfs with your spear or sword.
But even if you don't it doesn't matter because even if you obsessively
max your enemy class affinity you're only doing a few extra points of
damage.

Which specific ones you choose don't really matter as long as you have
all three. I will say though that shields are pretty dang useful
because of the gems you get and that two-handed weapons aren't that
much more powerful than one-handed weapons. In my current game I'm
using a one-handed edged sword, a one-handed blunt mace, and a
two-handed piercing spear. I guess dagger would be technically better
for piercing but I just think spears are cool (kind of hard to chain
though), and there's not a lot of piercing dagger blades.

You may want to bring a silver weapon along too though for special
circumstances. The silver dagger you get very early in the game is a
great choice. Not only does it cut through just about any undead enemy
like butter, it's also got pretty useful break arts so you can do light
elemental damage in more than one weapon type damage. But if you
accidentally threw away your silver dagger that's okay you can probably
deal just fine. Another weapon you might want to consider is a staff of
some sort for those moments where you need that extra few percent to
get off a magic attack with reassuring accuracy - I think the first
staff you get is silver.

edit: Oh and this has nothing to do with anything but use grimoires
first chance you get. They take away your MP anyway even if you're just
using the item so it's no use holding on to it for when you think you
might need a free casting.

And if you're insane:

Memecoleous posted:

Fun little tactic:

Think you've got good enough reflexes to nail every opportunity to use
a defense ability? Too lazy to deal with Risk and weapon management?
Try this out.

Among the chain abilities you get access to is Crimson Pain. This
ability does damage proportional to how LITTLE health you have in
comparison to your max HP. What does this mean? Unlike the ever popular
Heavy Shot, which does 60% of the damage of the initial hit, Crimson
Pain will do the same amount of damage even if the initial hit MISSES.
Crimson Pain becomes available for acquisition after you get four other
chain abilities. Basically, this means that faily early on you can run
around perpetually near death and do pretty good damage per hit,
regardless of Risk.

But Memecoleous, you might ask, lingering at 10 HP is just asking to
get killed! This is where those fast reflexes come into play. There are
two immensely useful defense abilities, Absorb Damage and Absorb Magic,
which I believe are readily available to acquire from the start. What
do these two defensive abilities do? They restore 50% of the damage
received from either physical damage or magical, respectively. Of
course, you might be wondering, how is this useful if you get knocked
down to 0 HP? Quite useful! You see, even when reduced to 0 HP, you
won't die until the enemy's attack and your defensive ability usage, if
any, is finished. What's especially interesting about this is that you
can actually RECOVER HP this way. Say you're at 10 HP, and you get
smacked for 52 damage. You're quick on that Absorb Damage button,
though, and you receive 50% of the damage back as health. So you go
from 10 HP to 26 HP! How crazy is that?

This scheme effectively lets you hit for good damage regardless of Risk
or whether or not you land the first hit, and provided you're not a
total fuck up on hitting the right Absorb defensive ability when the
exclaimation point pops up, you're invincible. This can't be considered
game breaking, as your ass is probably just as likely to get smoked
early on when you're still getting used to the timing (and when you're
trying to acquire the necessary abilities in the first place), so it's
more of an alternative strategy.

How effective is this? I've flown through the game on a fresh save in
four hours using only the starting sword, Fandango. No workshops, no
tedious weapon switching, no pauses to use Vera items or let my Risk
decrease naturally. I saved a shitload, of course, because even with
good reflexes you're bound to get caught off guard by a long ass spell
animation that fucks with your timing, or you hit the wrong defensive
ability, or you get hit with one of the rare attacks that neither
Absorb ability can counter. It happens. But if you're willing to risk
dying and reloading a lot by putting your faith in your reflexes and
not your weapon load outs, it effectively lets you ignore all the
micromanaging that is such a hated feature of the game. Personally, I
love tweaking my weapons and having a keen eye to detail, but I like
imposing arbitrary limitations on what I can do in a game to extend its
replay value, and this is a convenient way to get around cutting myself
off from workshops and new weaponry.